


Things that Go Smoke in the Night

by MasterOfAllImagination



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Noir, F/M, a plotless excuse to write florid metaphors about dark alleys, nebulous setting/time period, think 1920s chicago mixed with batman begins-era gotham
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-05-19
Packaged: 2018-06-09 10:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6902377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MasterOfAllImagination/pseuds/MasterOfAllImagination
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Obi-Wan feels the cold in his very bones, and next to him, Anakin lights a cigarette; the match flaring orange in the darkness, and-- well, you know the rest.  {Noir!au}</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things that Go Smoke in the Night

**Author's Note:**

> Contrary to the flippant tone of the summary, this is actually (mostly) not crack.

Squatting somewhere between a dingy puddle and the acrid haze of Anakin’s cigarette smoke, Obi-Wan lowers the binoculars from his eyes and purses his lips.  

“Anakin.  How many times have I asked you not to smoke those vile things while we’re on duty?”

“Sorry, Chief,” Anakin mutters, looking decidedly un-contrite as he puffs away.  “They calm me. You know how jumpy I get on these stakeouts.”

Obi-Wan reaches out and plucks the thing from Anakin’s lips, finally finding a use for the stagnant puddle.  “They’ll kill you.  And the light gives away our position.”

Even with the binoculars back at his eyes, Obi-Wan can feel Anakin’s glare as acutely as he had seen the cigarette’s orange flare out of the corner of his vision.  “Focus on the case, and calm will find you.  You don’t need cigarettes to do that for you.”

After a moment, Anakin sighs “yes, chief” and stretches out a bit more against the low brick wall of the roof.  In a crouch, Obi-Wan can feel the chill of the brick even though his boots, and he spares some jealousy for youth and their uncanny imperviousness to physical discomforts-- like cold-- that he, a mere mortal, seems so inconveniently troubled by.  He scuffs mournfully at the brick.  Maybe the raise that came along with his promotion to chief will stretch to cover some new shoes.

Obi-Wan lets the silence pervade.  The cold bites his toes and the criminal sect equally, so it’s as quiet on the streets as it is on his and Anakin’s lonely rooftop.  Very little chatter comes through the radio clipped at his belt.

Anakin reaches sideways for his turn with the binoculars.  “What are we looking for, exactly?”

“I’m sure we’ll know it when we see it.”

“Can the tip be trusted?”

In the dark, Obi-Wan eyes his detective.  “A tip from Dex? Of course.  I’ve known him since I walked a beat.  Never lead me wrong.”  He turns back to the golden glow of extravagance spread out on the street below them like a fancy dinner, carefully masking the indulgence of the city’s political elite as a charity fundraiser.  “Makes a mean cup of joe, too,” he adds.

Suddenly, Anakin scrambles upright, and Obi-Wan has his revolver drawn in .23 seconds.  But Anakin waves him off from his new position craning precariously out over the roof, binoculars glued to his eyes.   _Ah_ , Obi-Wan thinks, holstering his revolver but keeping his guard up,  _he’s spotted her._

“You didn’t mention that Councilwoman Amidala was going to be here,” Anakin says flatly.  Since Anakin can’t hide his delight upon seeing a donut, let alone spotting the woman he’s been lusting over for the last eighteen months, this sets sirens off in Obi-Wan’s head so loud that he briefly glances to the street, expecting to see strafing blues and reds.

“Because I didn’t want you to do anything--”

Anakin stands, drops the binoculars to his side, and scurries along the roofline, closer to the east cornice of the building and closer to the party light pouring into the road that will give away their covert observation should an interested third party happen to glance their way.

“Impulsive,” Obi-Wan finishes.  His mustache tugs downwards into a frown.  One would think that the title of Chief of Police would mean something to a mere detective, but as of late, the only title that will perk up Anakin’s ears is that of “councilwoman.”

It’s bad for his detective’s focus.  Women usually are, Obi-Wan finds, which is why he encourages abstention from fraternization among his men.  It’s as much use as preaching the bible to a brick wall.

He launches up after Anakin like a stabbed rat.  “ _Stay out of the light_ ,” he hisses, eyes roving over the adjacent roofline, primed to catch like burs on a sweater on any stray movement. Below them, another socialite arrives via Bentley, escorted on a man’s arm into the ballroom rented out by Mayor Palpatine for his shindig.  Other than that, the night is unmoving, dark and vaguely hazy at the edges of its ever-present smog.  Obi-Wan catches up with Anakin at the corner of the roof closest to the party and, judging them moderately hidden and relatively safe, begins to wait.

* * *

 

She walks in the room like a curtain falls across a stage, or maybe the way an unlatched screen door bangs in a hurricane: final and beautiful, distracting and arresting, all at the same time.  A lot of her visceral power is owed to the emerald velvet dress that skims her figure right down to the floor, showing skin just this side of tasteful. But most of it is down to the prepossessing aloofness she wears on her face like a second skin of alligator scales.  Her hair is an auburn updo that probably took weeks to coiffure, and matching emerald earrings hang nearly to her neck, but for every inch she reveals to the world, she keeps a mile all to herself.

A waiter swirls by in a penguin’s livery, proffering champagne.  Councilwoman Padme Amidala snags a glass and takes a sip.  It’s brilliant stuff-- Palpatine never stints on these sorts of soirees. It’s good for his public stance against corruption that his parents’ inheritance left him independently wealthy, elsewise certain unsavory tongues would wag with speculation about where a mere public servant finds the money to throw such elaborate parties.

But Padme has never wondered. She knows, like she knows exactly how many sips she will need to take of the champagne to appear sociable and yet retain her wits about her, that Palpatine is one of the good ones.  Amongst the morass of Coruscant’s corruption, he is the shiny spot in the rust, the good penny, the gap in the clouds--

And he’s approaching her, his ebony waistcoat and his faint smile starched equally to perfection.  The smile loses some of its stiffness as he nears her side, as it usually does.  Padme hasn’t figured out the reason for this yet, but she has her suspicions, and they don’t bother her as much as she knows her mother would prefer they did.

“Councilwoman Amidala,” he greets softly, his casual geniality on full-throttle for the night’s occasion. “I’m so glad you came.  You so rarely grace us with your presence.”

“It’s a very good cause,” she returns.  “And a very pleasant party.  I know I should get out more, but you understand how it goes with the work of a councilwoman--”

“All too well.”

She purses purple lips and sips a scant five or six bubbles of champagne.  He does the same.  Their eyes meet knowingly above the rims of their crystal flutes.

“You should allow yourself to indulge.  I assure you, it is a fine vintage.  I selected it myself.”

A smile flits over her lips. “I could say the same to you.”

“Ah, well.”  Palpatine looks around, gesturing grandly with his flute-- which is a good touch for the benefit of those watching, Padme thinks, because there are always people watching.  “You know how many sharks swim in these waters.  And I am loathe to give up my boat.”

“As am I.  Especially since it seems we share it.” Padme winces a bit as that slips out.  Before she can puzzle too deeply into the innuendo she’s certain lurks behind it, Palpatine’s mayoral facade un-stiffens completely, and he gives her an honest-to-god smile, bereft of the charm that he manufactures specifically for public appearances.

Padme’s misgivings unravel.  “Care to take a turn about the room, mayor?” She flags down a passing waiter and deposits her undrunk glass.  Palpatine’s is already gone, somehow; but he fills the space it leaves in his hand with Padme’s velveteen waist.

“It would be my pleasure.”

Saxophones swell and dip, and the band plays on as they join the dance floor.

* * *

 

Obi-Wan feels foreboding in his bones the way he feels the cold through his socks.  Maybe it’s written in the stiffness of Anakin’s shoulders, which are at the moment doing a good imitation of a stone’s solidity.  Or maybe it’s the stillness of the night, which is  _very_ still, like the eye of a storm, except the part they’re staking out is the storm and the eye is everywhere else.

But he likes to think he can just sense these sorts of things.  They’re bit more than a gut feeling, and a bit less than an educated guess, but they’ve never steered him wrong.  

Anakin lowers the binoculars, lifts them again, and then lowers them; a slot machine of indecision that finally settles on “morbidly curious.”  He takes a last good look and shoves the things back towards Obi-Wan, curiosity clinging to them like slime on a sewer grate. “Look at them,” he demands.  “The mayor and Amidala.”  

Briefly and fervently loathing his job, Obi-Wan peers into an eyeful of Councilwoman Amidala and Mayor Palpatine, dancing together in the midst of a cockaded crowd of politicians and political dirt bags.  They’re chatting.  They seem to be having a good time.

Obi-Wan isn’t, and he tries not to begrudge them theirs.  He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Anakin, they’re dancing.”

“He’s twice her age!” he protests.

“And you’re half of hers,” Obi-Wan reminds him.  “And you’ve never even met.” He allows himself to relax his guard for a moment so that he can squeeze his eyes shut.  When he opens them, he approaches Anakin’s petulance like he would a mugger in an alley.  “If I have to tell you to focus on your surveillance one more time I will have you desk jockeying for the next three weeks.  Do I make myself clear?”

A cigarette flares in front of his nose. “Yes, sir,” Anakin says around the filter.

“Good.  Now, I’m going to see if we can get a better vantage point from across the street. Can you--”

* * *

 

Shots ring out-- one, two, three-four-five--

Champagne flutes shatter--

An eight-piece band comes to a halt like an aural train wreck--

Palpatine’s grip on her hand turns from warmth to iron as he pushes her down to the floor, and she goes willingly, her breath nowhere to be found and her heart pounding like a scared rabbit’s. But her eyes are wide, and the world has slowed.  She can see everything.

People scatter like ninepins.  Just to her left, a prominent city judge cowers with his hands over his head, his wife forgotten at his side.  A flick of her eyes reveals several dramatis personae taking advantage of the hullabaloo to slip out the side doors unnoticed.  In front of her--

In front of her there is nothing but Palpatine, his side covering hers and an arm sheltering her protectively, steadily; the poster of cool, calm and collected.   _There has never been a better man to lead this city out of the dark and back into the light_ , Padme thinks, because she knows that a minute with a man under pressure will get you better acquainted than an hour in casual circumstances.  And if this isn’t a high-pressure situation, Padme doesn’t want to know what qualifies.

“I’m fine,” Padme says, half-sitting up to see better, but only coming perilously close to Palpatine’s cheekbone.

“For the moment,” he whispers, a hand on her ribs pushing her back down again.  “Don’t give them a target.”

“Give who a target?  Who are ‘they?’”

Palpatine twists a grin off his face like he might have twisted the cork out of a bottle. “Why, they’re the men with guns, my dear.”

All Padme can manage in response to that is a quiet  _damn_.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This will probably get a second part and a conclusion. It's only a little bit written at the moment. For further shitty aus and content that varies like the attention span of a toddler, you can follow me on tumblr @cutlerbeckettt.


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